Category Archives: Software Engineering
Harnessing confusion
So I get confused pretty easily, and I like that. Most for the time I get confused because my brain has a hard time storing & sorting the information that I’m provided with. The reason for that (as best I … Continue reading
Making it tangible
Tangible things are easy to care about; this is because we are humans. We like things that we can hear see & feel. Even in religion you will see all of these sense engaged; idols, symbols, incense & liturgy are … Continue reading
Requirements: Accuracy and Precision.
For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision Requirements are interesting in software development. It is used as the contract that the developer has to fulfill to succeed, if there is something missing then the requirements are incomplete, missing, wrong. This is surprising, because we … Continue reading
Reframing the bug backlog
A lot of places where I end up have a bug backlog; usually around 200-800 defects features and other assorted stuff in there. But mostly bugs. This creates an interesting dynamic, first of all trying to attack the backlog leads … Continue reading
Adam Smith on software
Adam Smith famously wrote of ‘a man of humanity in Europe’ who would not ‘sleep tonight’ if ‘he was to lose his little finger tomorrow’ but would ‘snore with the most profound security’ if a hundred million of his Chinese … Continue reading
Gaming the IDE
So people have a lot of ideas about how software should be written; how code should look; what should be tested; and just about everything else. We also know we can measure most of these things, cyclomatic complexity, code coverage, … Continue reading
The Builder analogy is right
So there has been some critique on the builder analogy. And a lot of it is deserved. But one place where it is right; and not often referenced is how the builder comparison applies to current builders. Current builders are … Continue reading
On Craftsmen
People have always had the most interesting problem of what developers are. One of the first attempts I know of has been the Mythical Man-Month, it communicated the concept that some developers had 10 times the output of other developers. … Continue reading